With my work deadline met, my dinner club attended, and the laundry almost done, I have been able to catch up on some reading this weekend. While technically behind my regular pace, I remain above the majority of those that graduate and never read another book. Can’t say that I have seen the Avengers, or that I have purchased the tickets yet, but you know where my priorities are.
From Sand and Ash by Amy Harmon
This is a book about being Jewish during the Second World War in Italy. The story centers around two people that meet as children, one a boy sent from America because of his one leg, to be a priest. The other is an Italian girl whose family helped the boy and his grandparents. This improbable pair become fast friends, and grow close. The lack of belief that the Fascists would harm the Jews of Italy mirrors what happened in the rest of Europe, but the underlying negativity and Anti-Semitism of the time is glossed over. The number of “close calls” and “near misses” are very convenient, as is the theory that the Catholic Church was organized well to save Jews. I believe the truth of that was how the Pope did not intercede, in life or in fiction, to help them. As for the improbability of the ending – this was a very Hollywood ending. While it is nice to see something good come from such evil, this is the least believable part of the whole story.
My Ex Life by Stephan McCauley
The story of two formerly married people that, after a brief marriage and decades apart, are brought back together by one’s daughter. David, a gay man that had married Julia when she found she was pregnant, is contacted in San Francisco by Mandy, Julia’s teenage daughter. Mandy has brought him up to keep her divorcing parents from using her as a pawn against each other. David, who runs a successful(ish) consulting company helping the children of wealthy parents get through the college application process (no bribes here, however). He comes out to New England to help based upon Mandy’s request, and a need to leave SF as he is losing his rental to a former lover and his new partner. Julia, who has been taking hits of weed every day for years, is slightly muddled and unfocused about herself and her home, which she loves passionately, but will probably lose in the divorce. As David sets to straighten up everything (the gay man going straight line here is too obvious), and Julia allows him to take care of her, they fall into a companionable life together, as though time had not passed. While Mandy acts out on her and her mother’s lack of belief in themselves, David is the one that puts the pieces together and saves the day. But only because each person takes responsibility for their own actions, past and present, to be able to build a new future.
Next up: The Seven Sisters, A Place for Us, and The Alice Network. Someday I may finish Becoming. Right now I am bored so I am not wasting my time.
The Source 4 Books 